Selig's dream job may be nightmare

RAY RATTO, EXAMINER COLUMNIST

Published 4:00 am, Friday, January 21, 2000

IT'S EVERYboy's dream, what Bud Selig just got. And it has a slow detonati on fuse. Buteventually, Selig will learn the difference between the illusion of absolutepower, and absolute power itself. He will learn that, for practicalpurpo ses, it is better to be powerful than just look powerful. Selig, theundisputed c ommissioner of the major-league baseball owners, was granted"sweeping" new powers Wednesday, a significant difference from his former responsibility - the power to sweep up.

Among these new powers, he can now block trades, fine teams 10 times as much money as the old limit, and, most dangerous of all, redistribute national television and Internet money as he sees fit.

Dangerous, that is, to Selig himself. He has been granted the power to look after the less competitive, less well-moneyed and just plain terribly run franchises, and to take from the rich clubs to make that happen.

This is a lot of power to grant one man, especially one who still is related by blood to the operator of one of those poor franchises. Hey, if my daughter were running the Milwaukee Brewers, I'm not so sure I could resist the temptation to give her Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera for her 40th birthday, either.

But that's beside the point. This is the sort of power that really does corrupt absolutely, and to prove it, let's take the cases of our own two little ball teams.

The A's just jacked up their payroll to around $32 million, an increase of nearly $10 million from last year. Plus, owners Steve Schott and Ken Hofmann have always made money on their little ballclub.

Yet, that payroll is still nearly $70 million less than that of the Yankees. Do the A's qualify for some of Bud's boodle?

Or the Giants. They're moving into their new digs, with anticipated sellouts galore (after all, you know what a draw not having Jerry Spradlin and Julian Tavarez can be). But there is the matter of that debt service, which is roughly pegged at 11/2 Kevin Browns, and the increasing suspicion that the ballpark is going to be as much of an anvil as it is an additive.

Knowing all this, we must ask, do the Giants qualify for the dole?

EVEN MORE fundamental is the question of whether the A's would

get more money because they have caused Selig and the powers no grief at all while Giants owner Peter Magowan has irritated the same folks, and more than once.

And Bud gets to decide this? Sure, that'll work.

But doling out money to the under-overprivileged isn't what will ruin the job for Selig. It's doling out money from the over-overprivileged.

Does anyone know how much money is going to be involved here? The Canadian government thinks $2 million to each of its NHL teams will keep them happy, an absurdly low figure knowing both player salaries and owner venality.

In other words, we are talking a lot of money every year from gentlemen who are not by nature cheerful socialists. Put another way, Larry Dolan, the new owner of the Cleveland Indians, is going to get awfully tired of watching money that would normally go to him going instead to Jeff Loria, the new owner of the Montreal Expos.

Besides, all this could become moot if, or more likely when, the next labor problem arises. If, as always happens, the owners plan to make this their last stand against the union, Selig is in trouble, because the owners never work in concert but in defense of their own individual needs. If, as always happens, the players either win or at least skate to a tie, Selig is in more trouble, because power contracts after a loss.

EITHER WAY, Selig is trapped, either by trying (and failing) to keep all

the owners unified, or by taking a beating at the hands of the welterweight Don Fehr.

If, on the other hand, Selig had been given the power to do what he wants when he wants and to whom he wants without fear of firing, maybe it could have worked. That, the only kind of power that really matters, he didn't get.

He has enough, though, to get his shoes squeezed when things get weird, as they always do.

So here's to Bud Selig and his sweeping new powers. The poor sap. &lt;